Inventory is still a thing, and no shop stocks more than its regular influx of customers.What? Uh... no. All shops do this. I've never wandered into a shop with empty shelves, barring going out of business sales or hurricane days.
I've come across hobby stores that keep a minimal amount of stock for tabletop miniatures games, but that pretty much immediately drives a lot of potential customers to the internet.
Having more stock than regular customers will buy is absolutely normal, otherwise you quickly end up with walk-in customers and nothing to sell them.
...oh my word, really? You don't say? Wouldn't you argue, then, that having stock - on hand - to meet the supply/demand of that particular item as stocking in relation to the regular influx of customers?
You twisted my words - bravo? Would you like a slow-clap? Perhaps an evil swivel-chair turn, evil cat on my lap, gasping that you've "sussed out my evil ploy"?
Extra inventory is essential to meeting demand, but you wouldn't argue that, say, if I keep 400,000 flashlights on hand (to use the earlier product example) when I sell only close to 100 or so monthly, that I was keeping "extra just in case"? Just so that I don't "have empty shelves"? It's not a 1:1 deal here, guy, it's a projection.
Of course the shop/store is going to have (at least, most shops should have) at least double, if not normally triple, the stock on-hand to meet any potential spike/fall in demand.
That was my whole point. The shop is not going to have an endless supply of item B so that you can rip item A out of it and then sell it right back to them, to repeat the process infinitely until the player feels they have just enough credits.
So yes, let's go back to my statement: No shop stocks more than its regular influx of customers.
Perhaps look up the word influx, then attach the word "regular", apply some common sense, then rinse and repeat until the definition of the sentence I constructed...
This is all wrong, but only because of the improper use of the words "no," "regular," and "influx."
A better formulation would be that most shops stock more than their projectd sales, adjusted by the cost of filling orders, which is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike what you wrote.
I don't expect you to take a supply chain management class before arrogantly and confidently proclaiming on subjects where you have only a dim understanding (it's the internet), but you might productively educate yourself by googling "economic order quantity" with particular attention paid to shortage costs and why you want to have more than you expect to sell on average.